Since I'm sprucing up the bathroom, I figured I might as well get a nice new supply line for the toilet.
Remember when a half gallon of ice cream suddenly shrunk to 1.75 qts and even 1.5 qts for some brands? Apparently the plumbing industry took notice.
Here's my old 12" supply line compared to the new 12" supply line.
Same as the 2"X4" studs in 100+ year old homes, as compared to the
1.5"X3.5" "2X4" lumber of today.Comparisons could go on. A prime example being our local daily paper, which I sometimes wonder why I still subscribe to. It's at least 1/3 of the size that it was 20 years ago, even printed on shorter broadsheet paper; yet the price is over 3 times higher.
Note that that new supply line might not be capable of tightening up the connection regardless of length. I went through three of them in quick succession--in each the brass nut broke before the dripping stopped. Fourth one was from McMaster, not Home Depot. It's been fine for 20 years.
Seems to be consumer fraud to me.
Dumb question: what are the actual measurements. I suspect the total length of the new one is 12" and the old one is 12" between the connectors.
Wrong on both counts. :-)
The total length of the old one in 12.75". The total length of the new one is 12.25".
Neither of them are 12" between the connectors, but since the connectors are the same size (~.75" and ~.5") the length of the braided portion is different by the same .5" as the overall length.
Amazon carries a 12" fill tube where the specified product length is 12.75". I almost ordered it, but I wanted the toilet back in operation today. I just got back from Lowe's. The 16" fill tube works (and looks) just fine.
I didn't measure it before installation, so don't ask. ;-)
So it is like the 2x4.
You wouldn't be the only one to make this mistake.
Well, there is a reason for that but...
Perhaps a better example would be plywood.
Well, in this case it wasn't a mistake. If the old 12" supply line fit, and the new one was only short by a 1/2", I was pretty sure that whatever actual length the 16" fill tube was, it would fit.
If I had more time, I would have hired an engineer to draw up a set of fully dimensioned plans and provide 27 eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back back of each one explaining what each one was to be used for, but I really wanted to get the toilet back in service today.
I was getting tired of the alternative.
Houston used to have 2 major newspapers. I subscribed to the Houston Chronicle for a bout 15 years. It was the dominant paper over the Houston Post.
Along comes about 1995ish and the Chronicle out right buys the Post. Then fires all the Post employees and shuts down the Post all together.
I dropped the Chronicle almost immediately. While I did not read the Post, I knew that the Chronicle, with no competition, would go down hill quickly.
Now we have Fake News and no proof reading and it is a waste of trees.
Economics. A old friend had an old home that he was doing some modifications on. His wall studs were OAK 2x4, actual size. He had to take that into consideration when cutting nailing AND matching up wall thickness.
From what I understand, the lumber, now, starts at 2x4 and shrinks and gets milled to 1.5 x 3.5.
Economics.
My daughter's 86 YO house has full size studs, posts, beams, joists, etc. Via various upgrades/renovations it also has nominal sized studs, beams, post, joists, etc.
Thing is, it's not like they had Tom Silva-like crews doing the work. The face of the various structural members are rarely on the same plane.
It's like they didn't even try, even with some of the original 1935 structure. Anything done after that was as if they said "Well, it wasn't even before we got here so we don't have to worry about making it even either."
The same holds for the wiring and plumbing. "They did sloppy work, no need for me to try and be neat."
Well, yes, but the shrinkage started out to be the rough cut and planed size. Then they downsized the rough cut to get the same size after planeing. I think _then_ they dropped it to what it is now.
With 1% the "news" and 10x the advertising. I don't think we've taken a newspaper in 40 years. At times they've littered our front yard with them. It was nearly impossible to get it stopped (counted as "circulation").
At the other end of the spectrum, newer houses have a reputation for exactly the same thing. Preparing to do some work for my shop in this house (built in 2007), I put a level on the basement studs. Now these are all load bearing (the basement walls are directly under the first floor walls) and all 2x6s. Every one of them is as plumb as can be. They seem to be pretty accurately placed, as well. I was really surprised.
I meant the 12". I sure wouldn't have measured the fill line, though may have noticed that it was pretty tight.
Use Sketchup! ;-)
Or you could have just put it out for government contract.
Isn't the woodcraft catalog a little "scratchy"?
I guess it was pretty tight...it didn't leak. ;-)
I installed it 20+ years ago. No way I remember if I was concerned about the length back then. For all I remember, maybe it was the one from the original toilet I replaced when I was rebuilding the bathroom back then. An errant sledge hammer swing while taking out a wall sent that one to the landfill.
This time, I just figured a 12" fill line was a 12" fill line, so I bought a 12" fill line.
Who'd a thunk there is no standard for a 12" fill line.
Woodsmith magazine.
I only read it for the centerfold...err...umm...I mean the articles.
Well, the trouble being that as circulation continues to drop, they lose ad revenue. Newspapers peaked circa 2000, and declined from there. Television and radio had nothing on them; free news on the internet did newspapers in. Meanwhile, where does the "free news" come from? Newspaper journalists... bit of a conundrum there. I much prefer reading my news on paper - I don't even have cable TV. If it shrinks anymore without a shrinking price, I'm done I suppose.
My grandfather had to open up a wall once in his parent's home many years ago. An outlet was added into the wall below. To install said outlet, the prior owner bared some insulation off of the knob and tube wiring, and literally hooked wires to it, in a hook shape, gravity holding the wires onto the K&T in the wall and making the copper connection. The wires weren't even twisted - no splicing tape used. How terrifying! Amazing it didn't burn to the ground.
We moved into a new neighborhood 10 years ago and my dad moved in with us about 6 months later. He still insisted in taking the paper but he was the only one that I know of in the neighborhood that did so. I have not seen a newspaper in years.
LOL, I used to take the news paper up until 1995 for the adds. The news was what they wanted you to read, not really the news. And now all media is prolifically motivated stories.
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